College Football

The Associated Press came out with its Preseason Top 25 in college football yesterday morning and to the surprise of Fighting Irish fans everywhere, Notre Dame was nowhere to be seen.

While the Irish are coming off of yet another disappointing season, many fans have high hopes for the upcoming season because of new coach Brian Kelly.

“How can we not be ranked? Seven Heisman Trophies and 11 national titles and we are not ranked? We have Cincinnati’s coach and we are Notre Dame -- there is no way we lose a game!” said completely realistic Irish fan Sean McIntyre.

As of right now, no other school seems to think there is much merit for Notre Dame’s complaints, but that isn’t stopping Notre Dame AD Jack Swarbrick from declaring that the AP poll is “a slight against God”.

“By not putting the great institution of Notre Dame in the Top 25, the Associated Press is saying that having God on your side has no worth,” Swarbrick said. “I hope Alabama and the other ‘elite’ teams in the Top 25 are prepared to get crushed by the power of the Lord because I just put in a call to Jesus.”

When informed about Swarbrick’s comments, Crimson Tide head coach Nick Saban was baffled by how serious the AD was taking the AP poll.

“It literally counts for 0 percent of the BCS and has no value in determining the National Championship,” Saban said. “And if Swarbrick is really that upset about not being in the AP Top 25, just show him Lou Holtz’s list. I bet you 20 bucks that Notre Dame is in his Top 3."

As Joe Paterno enters his 45th season as the head coach of the football program at Penn State, some have begun to question how much longer the 83 year old can continue to lead a major program. It was believed that his current contract, set to expire after next season, would finally be the end of his storied career. No one wants to see such a historic sports figure die in office.

But officials from Penn State announced today that it doesn't necessarily have to be end, should he die while still the head coach.

"We have an exciting announcement from our college of Medical Sciences & Dark Arts today," said enthusiastic school president Graham Spanier. "We believe we now have the technology to be able to bring JoePa back as an undead zombie, should he die soon."

"We've always been honored to have him on our sidelines, and in all honesty with how little he seems involved right now, zombie JoePa will probably be about the same as the living version. As long as his flesh doesn't decay so much that it starts scaring off recruits, this opens him up to coach us for... another 200 years or so. But who knows, kids might think its cool to play for an undead monster anyway..."

Doctor-Shamans from the Medical Sciences & Dark Arts college say they have a formula ready to inject into Paterno should he die at any time during the next two seasons. Within a few hours of injection, his body will be ready to rise up from the dead to both eat brains and coach hard hitting Big Ten football.

While it could be dangerous to have a blood crazed zombie on the sidelines of a 100,000 seat stadium, President Spanier says it's probably not as dangerous as letting an 83-year-old man drive his own car around the campus every day.

"It'll be great," continued Spanier. "He'll be part coach, part cool zombie mascot, and part science experiment that students from our evil mad doctor program can study. There's one thing you all won't have to worry now, and that's whether or not JoePa will be back. He's going to be here for at least another century! Goooooo Nittany Lions!"

Seattle has been declared a national disaster area today by President Barack Obama, as last night the city managed to actually sell out an MLS game. The Seattle Sounders hosted the Los Angeles Galaxy at a packed Qwest Field, where people in attendance even wore Sounders apparel and seemed to understand what was going on on the field.

"Things are very bad in Seattle right now," said Obama in a statement made over national television. "This city is so desperate for real sports to return, they are enjoying soccer. I have never seen it so bad. With the failure of the Mariners to do anything this season, and the Supersonics having left, this city is in dire straights. They need a real sport to watch, and they need it now!"

"I am authorizing the national college football defense fund to be put into action to bring college football to this town as quickly as possible. I've told Washington and Washington State to hurry up and get their seasons underway. This city needs relief quickly, before the entire population is engulfed into rooting for an MLS team full time."

Reports are scarce from within the city limits, but its believed the people are so taken with soccer out of sports boredom, they have begun to wear the jerseys of players and check for box scores on the ESPN ticker. ESPN has responded saying that for their own safety, they will hide MLS scores and highlights extra deep in their programming, perhaps relegating it to ESPN News 2 En Espanol.

"We have to keep soccer as far away from these Seattle residents as possible," said VP of ESPN Programming Ken White. "These people are on the verge of full support of a soccer club. We have no idea what that could look like in this country! Can our people even handle it?! This could cause a breakdown of all civilization up there!"

Obama hopes the emergency doses of college football will help divert their attention from the strange sport, but if it's not enough more drastic measures may have to be taken.

"If these people do not snap out of this trance they seem to be under, we have the Seattle Seahawks standing by," stated Obama. "We have C-130's prepared to air drop the entire team onto the city, along with the Patriots, Steelers, and Giants. They have been told to play football ball anywhere and everywhere, to remind people what they are missing. I won't have my country taken over by this sport! It was bad enough we had to care about the World Cup for two weeks!"

"If all that fails, of course we will have to... nuke the entire city. It's the only way to be sure..."

Things just got more heated for Lane Kiffin and the USC Trojans. On the same day it was announced their entire 2004 National Championship might be on the line after Reggie Bush's academic violations, the Tennessee Titans said they would sue Lane Kiffin for his hiring away of one of their assistant coaches.

But that wasn't all, as the University of Tennessee revealed they would also be suing Kiffin after bolted their school last year, under charges of being "a complete dick."

"Lane Kiffin is a dick, a big hairy dick," read the legal document filed today in Tennessee court. "He is a bastard that should never have left us in a lurch like this. He deserves to be legally bound to rot in hell, and also give us a lot of money...or something like that...You decide, you're the judge. But rest assured, we have lots of evidence that he is a total dick."

ESPN legal analyst James Walters says the case could be a hard one to settle. "Dick law in this country is very interpretive," Walters said. "What some people consider to be a dick move like abandoning your school shortly after joining, could just be seen as a cocksucker move by someone else. There aren't many precedents for dick cases in this country, it's going to be a very interesting trial."

It's speculated that the "Kiffin Is A Dick" lawsuit could go as high as the Supreme Court, eventually.

"I would love to see a good dick case make it into my court," said Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg. "It's been quite awhile since I've had one in here, and I've almost forgotten how nice it feels to put one on trial.

"I remember in my early days, I would be trying dick cases left and right, it seemed every young lawyer was just waiting to sue a dick with me. These dick cases are just so big, and full of...sweeping legal ramifications...oh boy, is it getting hot in here?"

The lawsuit is expected to go to trial soon in Tennessee, around the same time as the lawsuit from the Titans. It will be an interesting few weeks for Kiffin as he will have to make a strong case for not being a total dick.

His lawyers have said it's going to be a tough sell, the only people who will believe he's not a dick are those with no knowledge of sports, or who have never heard the man speak. It will be tough to find a jury composed completely of people like that.

The NCAA announced today that the North Carolina Tar Heels football program is being put under review after it was realized that the Heels somehow had 8-5 record each of the past two seasons.

This discovery happened today when college officials were looking at the books from last season to decide early season schedules.

The schedule maker immediately phoned his boss, and asked if he remembered anything about North Carolina actually not sucking at football. His boss responded that he sort of remembered hearing that once or twice on ESPN, but because it wasn't February or March and it was North Carolina, he didn't really pay attention.

"Obviously there has been cheating of some kind," said the head of NCAA's investigations committee. "Schools like North Carolina just don't win football games. Look at Duke's recent records: 1-11, 4-8, 5-7. That is a school playing by the rules! 8-5 two years in a row? Bowl appearances? This thing stinks to high heaven!"

Some theories accounting for North Carolina's "success" include normal accusations like illegal recruiting or academic cheating to more outlandish theories like changing record books, time travel, and erasing everyone's memories with those Men in Black pens.

"We are not leaving any stone unturned on this investigation, I can promise you that!" said the spokesman. "We've already contacted Michael J. Fox to find out everything he knows about going back in time to help your sports team win games they aren't supposed to. We have also contacted the writers of Star Trek to see if wormholes might be involved. We have lots of theories, and I'm sure one of them is going to be proven true."

Time travel or wormhole violations have no precedent in college football, but it's believed these games could be forfeited until North Carolina has the three or four wins that everyone thinks they should have.

USC has contacted the NCAA to see if they could have some of those wins given back to them.

Conference realignment has been the buzz word of the college football off-season and a huge source of confusion for most sports fans. To sum up the recent changes simply: Colorado left the Big 12 for the Pac-10, making the Pac-10 actually the Pac-11 and reducing the Big 12 down to the Big 11. Then the Big Ten (which really had 11 teams) added Nebraska making the Big Ten effectively the Big Twelve and leaving the conference formerly known as the Big 12 with just ten teams. Then Utah joined the Pac-11 to make it the Pac-12 and we thought things were settling down on the conference shift front. That is until the stunning announcement that USC will be leaving the Pac-12 conference, making it the Pac-11 again.

“As of today we will be withdrawing our appeal of the recent NCAA sanctions and ordering all NCAA inspectors off our campus,” stated USC athletic director Mike Garrett “We have instead decided to accept an invitation to become a member of the Axis of Evil Conference effective immediately.” According to Garrett, the school received a call from AOEC officials following news of the harsh NCAA ruling. It seems the group was looking to replace former AOEC member Iraq following the latter’s transition to a free society and was also looking to expand their evil influence into college football. “It seems like the perfect fit to us. The AOEC has experience thumbing their noses at unjust sanctions from overbearing institutions. They’ve promised us that the puny NCAA will not be a problem and that it will be backroom business as usual at Southern Cal. We’ve even discussed using their contacts to add a nuclear option to our offensive playbook for the next season. ”

The transition could prove more difficult than USC expects. TSC has learned that the AOEC requires each member to cut all social and economic ties with the West and to adopt an official language other than Satan’s tongue (read English). Despite the challenges, new coach Lane Kiffin seems confident. “I am very happy with this move,” said Kiffin, “Convincing recruits to renounce their United States citizenship may seem hard to some, but we have the best recruiting staff in the entire world here at USC. We just remind these kids that no matter what evil we may perpetrate, at the end of the day we put people in the pros.” As for the new language, Kiffin said the team has already begun the process of transitioning over to “whatever that language is that Coach O speaks.”

While Southern Cal fans may be surprised by this recent turn of events, it seems clear that folks in Oakland and Knoxville were right to claim that Lane Kiffin is an evil. . .well not genius, bent on college football dominance just like North Korea’s head man Kim Jong Il and Iran’s skipper Mahmoud Ackm. . .Mahmoud Ahmi. . .the beady-eyed, bearded dude. “USC is a very strong and powerful school,” said Kiffin, “much too powerful to submit to the rule of any conference and especially to the whims of an organization as biased as the NCAA. The AOEC was attractive to us on many levels: First, they have no restrictions on recruiting which fits in with the way we do things here at USC; B) they have assured me that we can add the Southeastern Conference, Urban Meyer and all Tennessee fans to the AOEC list of sworn enemies; and 3) their football national champion is determined by supreme leader instead of by some stupid BCS formula invented by greedy capitalists.”

The Detroit Lions held a
private workout yesterday with probably number one draft pick Matthew
Stafford at their private practice facility in northern Michigan. They
were said to be very impressed by the athleticism of the player out of
Georgia, and were going to start negotiations immediately with his
agent. But, after realizing he was probably going to be taken by the
Lions, or at best the Rams, Stafford is said to now be considering
taking a few years off before finding a job.

"Hey man," said
Stafford in an interview. "I'm just not sure what I want to do with my
life yet. I just graduated college, that doesn't mean I have to go out
and get a job right away. Sure, it's a decent offer. $25 million a year,
never have to worry about money again, blah, blah, blah. But the Lions?
I don't know about that."

"My parents have made an intriguing
counter offer of a futon in their basement, pizza a couple times a week,
and the ability to borrow dad's car on the weekends. I am considering
it with my agent as we speak."

"But," he continued. "I really
think I just need to move back home for a little bit. There are so many
busts in the NFL, I don't know if I want to be just another name on the
list with Ryan Leaf. Maybe I'll get a part-time position at a coffee
house, try to get people to listen to my self-made emo music on MySpace,
and argue with my folks constantly about how I'm doing nothing with my
life. That sounds like a much more interesting future than a career with
the Lions."
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When Michael Crabtree
showed up at the Combine to get measured, he checked in at 2 full inches
under his listed 6' 3" at Texas Tech. Scouts were somewhat stunned at
such a gross mismeasurement. But the most amazing shocker of the Combine
came when linebacker Beezleknees Gum Gum measured over 3 feet smaller
than his listed 6' 5" at Emerald City College, completely scrambling
everyone's draft boards.

While Gum Gum had been a dominant force
in Divison VII college football, the division for literature and fairy
tale characters, some say he may struggle at the next level. He led
Emerald City in tackles, interceptions, and sacks, as they went on to
triumph over the Narnia Fairies in the Division VII championship game.
He is somewhat of a legend on campus, after he made a stunning
interception return for a touchdown that helped upset the Hogwarts
Wizards in the semi-finals, a matchup that oddsmakers expected them to
lose handily.

But in standing Beezleknees next to the other
Combine athletes, it seems like it might be very hard to compete for the
3 foot kid from Munchkin Land. He ran a 8.5 40-yard dash, a very good
time for someone with legs half the size of a normal human. Plus, he
showed some resolve when he attempted to tackle Florida runningback
Percy Harvin. He wasn't able to actually bring him down, but he latched
onto his right thigh and held on all the way to the endzone on a 72-yard
touchdown, something a lesser munchkin would never be able to do.

Scouts
aren't sure where he will go now in the draft, as he was projected to
be an early 3rd rounder based on his performance on tape. But now that
he has turned out to be smaller, some are saying he might not be drafted
at all, as he is too easy to confuse with the football itself. Others
say his ability to use magic might make up for his physical
deficiencies.

Gum Gum is the son of a wealthy mother from the
Lollipop Guild and a hardworking father who made fudge-covered cookies
in an oak tree. If he is drafted, he would be the first munchkin to ever
be taken on draft day. Right now, it appears he will be the only
Division VII player taken, although the Falcons are very high on a
speedy runningback centaur out of Fantasia State.
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It's national signing day, and all recruits, even the lowest of them are on the radar of the college football faithful. None is perhaps more low on the ranking than Montana's Patrick Sutter, 3rd string quarterback of the Missoula High School Fighting Plastics Manufacturers. He had hoped that college scouts would look past his failing to start a single game in his career, due to the fact that competition is so tough at the Montana school.

It was thought he might be looked at like a Matt Cassel, who faced similarly tough competition at lowly programs USC and New England and couldn't get a starting job, but flourished when given a chance. But things didn't quite work out that way for Sutter, as he was not scouted by a school and even received a letter from Scouts Ltd. rating him at 0 stars.

"I think that these places are making a big mistake," said Sutter. "Just last week I set the high score in my xbox game of NCAA 09, I threw like 30 touchdowns. Now, I will admit that I had a cheatcode on for no gravity and rocket powered footballs, but I'm pretty sure if given the chance I'd be able to do that in real life as well."

But the fact he hasn't been recruited by anyone is not stopping the young man from holding a press conference to announce where he will sign after high school.

"This just narrows my options a bit, and contrary to what they've been talking about on SportsCenter every night, I have a lot of places offering me free rides. Right now I have offers from a CVS Pharmacy down the street to be assistant night manager, they told me I can start right away and can even call my own plays. I have a scholarship offer from Montana Community College for their Air Conditioning Repair program, which sounds like a program I might want to be a part of. Then there's this one from the Air Force, an actual division I school mind you! They say they will give me a completely free ride if I just go to Iraq for a little while. I'm sure I can play football in those desert conditions, so I'm fine with that."

With so many suitors after Sutter, it's hard to guess where he'll end up. His father is an alumnus of the local plastics factory, so he could end up going there as well in hopes of getting his hard hat and flannel shirt retired on the wall next to his old man. TSC will monitor the situation and have more as a decision is made.

FSU held a press conference today to announce that they had come to the agreement that they are not going to call the police about the dead rotting carcass of Bobby Bowden that has been laying on their sidelines for the past several years. It was highly speculated that the body of the longtime coach would finally be removed from the field after this season, as many fans in attendance near the FSU bench complained of the smelly corpse flesh. But FSU dismissed those claims as being not the smell of Bobby Bowden's decomposing remains, but the smell of the shitty play on the field.

"Look, when you are playing as bad as we have the past few seasons, your whole stadium is going to smell like shit, that's just the way it is," said FSU Athletic Director Randy Spetman. "We hope that gets better next year. But about the dead body of Bowden, we have hired a new person here to be the official Smellologist for the team, and it will be his job to make sure the body is acceptable before every game. He has already begun treatment on it through a combination of spraying it with Febreeze and rubbing those little air freshener trees all over it. He should smell just like a rose for opening day, or if not a rose, a combination of Citrus Rush and New Car Smell."

The players have said they are happy to have Bowden's lifeless corpse returning for another season.

"A lot of people criticize coach Bowden's corpse for his laid back coaching style," said quarterback Christian Ponder. "But him lying there dead all game, saying nothing, it's just his way of telling us to play a little harder so we don't end up like that. Seeing a deceased guy coach a team these last few years, when he has no business coaching, it really inspires us players and tells us that we can do anything!"

It's unknown what the future holds for Bowden's dead body, but you can expect more of the same lifeless coaching that you've seen the last few years.